Turkey's election council says will continue its duty without bowing to threats, smear campaigns

by Daily Sabah with AA

Turkey's Supreme Election Council (YSK) said Wednesday it will continue performing its duty without bowing to threats, pressure or smear campaigns.

"It is unacceptable for judges to be smeared and personally made into targets due to their rulings," the YSK said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement said under Turkey's constitution and laws, even if a person is a member of the legislature with immunity from prosecution, that does not give anyone the freedom to commit crimes or insult members of the judiciary.

The YSK was referring to main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's remarks targeting judges of the YSK.

Speaking at his party meeting on Tuesday, Kılıçdaroğlu had described the YSK decision as a "frame" against democracy and blamed seven members of the YSK, who voted in favor of canceling the March 31 elections, of being "gang members" who work for the interests of the ruling party.

Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP's mayoral candidate in Istanbul, also said that the decision of YSK's seven members who voted in favor of taking his mandate as the mayor of Istanbul back does not mean anything for him.

Voters in Istanbul cast four different votes in the March 31 elections, electing district administrators, mayors, municipal councils, and local officials. Of those four votes, the YSK ruled to annul only the Istanbul mayoral result.

The renewed mayoral election will be held on June 23. The YSK said its decision to annul the polls was based on unsigned result documents from the election and on some ballot box officials not being civil servants.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the elections were marred by "organized irregularity" and added that the decision was an important step towards strengthening democracy.

The YSK has yet to publish its detailed decision with reasoning.

The March 31 elections witnessed a very close race between the People's Alliance candidate Binali Yıldırım and the Nation Alliance candidate Ekrem Imamoğlu. According to unofficial results, Imamoğlu led the polls by almost 13,000 votes in Istanbul where nearly 10 million citizens cast their votes.

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